Word: krassowski
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...When Krassowski first joined the carnival in the summer of 1949, he did not dream that he would ever be coming back again. A veteran of the Polish underground and an alumnus of a series of Nazi prisoner-of-war camps, he was studying at Purdue when a Danish classmate persuaded him to try his hand at running a carnival stand. The two men got a truck from a concession agency and joined the Northern Exposition Shows, "touring Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. At his "foot-long"' (hot dog) stand, Krassowski not only developed into an authority...
Beef or Go. Today, says Krassowski, there are more than 400 traveling shows, inhabited by men and women who are in many ways a law unto themselves. To the carny, all non-carnies are "people," whose dull lives arouse both pity and scorn. At first, Krassowski and his friend were people too. The carnies were polite enough, but they were slow to accept the newcomers as part of their world. Then, after dismantling their stand one closing night, Krassowski and his friend offered to help some "ride-boys" take down their carrousel. They worked from midnight until...
...weeks passed, Krassowski mastered the various ways of keeping the "tips" (prospective customers) coming to his stand. But studying his fellow carnies became his real interest. He interviewed them, examined their code, eventually found that one theme dominates everything they do. "The carnival," Krassowski concluded, "is one of the few remaining strongholds of rugged individualism...
What sort of people become carnies? Usually, says Krassowski, carnies are the children or the relatives of carnies. Others achieve the status by accident. In one town a local carpenter challenged a sideshow wrestler to a bout; when he won, he decided to join the carnival for good. In another town a local auto mechanic was called in to help fix a Ferris wheel, and just never left. A college zoologist worked at a carnival one summer, resigned his job at the college, now runs a snake show. A California social worker is now reading palms in a "mitt camp...
...carny world, says Sociologist Krassowski, is a tempting one: "You work like a wild donkey, you don't sleep and you lose weight. You knock the tents down and put them up and knock them down again. But I'm a carny now. In my stand, I watch the customers come in and I find myself thinking: "Poor people, poor people. They cannot do as they please...